Title

Grey lady (Mrs Ince)

Artist

Tom Roberts

About

Painted in London where Roberts had settled in 1903 the stylish subject and relatively complex composition of this portrait reveal his ambition to attain the respected status of then fashionable portraitists such as Gainsborough and Wilson Steer. However the painting dates from a troubled period when Roberts met continued rejection by the Royal Academy. On the advice of young fellow Australian expatriate artist James Quinn, he reduced the range of colours in his palette to yellow ochre, light red, white and black, producing a number of fine works of similar low-key tonality and delicate sensitivity.

His paint-handling in this portrait, using thickly applied yet dry-looking pigment, was to form the basis of his approach to the works he produced following his return to Australia in 1923.